That's your problem. The KERNEL thing is benign - that has nothing to do with your problem. It means that the "kernel_linux" USE flag is newly added and is force removed/disabled for your profile in the new ebuild. Look at "man emerge" and look at the documentation under the --verbose switch. It is most probably a compatibility USE flag for some other profile (bsd probably) and makes no sense on Linux and is hence force disabled._________________emerge --quiet redefined | E17 vids: I, II | Now using e from git | e18, e19, and kde4 sucks :-/

That's your problem. The KERNEL thing is benign - that has nothing to do with your problem. It means that the "kernel_linux" USE flag is newly added and is force removed/disabled for your profile in the new ebuild. Look at "man emerge" and look at the documentation under the --verbose switch. It is most probably a compatibility USE flag for some other profile (bsd probably) and makes no sense on Linux and is hence force disabled.

That is one interpretation, the other option is that the flag was simply removed. Usually KERNEL flags are related to building kernel modules or directly interfacing with the kernel API.

That's your problem. The KERNEL thing is benign - that has nothing to do with your problem. It means that the "kernel_linux" USE flag is newly added and is force removed/disabled for your profile in the new ebuild. Look at "man emerge" and look at the documentation under the --verbose switch. It is most probably a compatibility USE flag for some other profile (bsd probably) and makes no sense on Linux and is hence force disabled.

That is one interpretation, the other option is that the flag was simply removed. Usually KERNEL flags are related to building kernel modules or directly interfacing with the kernel API.

I don't see how there can be two interpretations. If there are, then the emerge manpage is outdated._________________emerge --quiet redefined | E17 vids: I, II | Now using e from git | e18, e19, and kde4 sucks :-/

Combination of -, % and () is a strong indicator that the flag was removed.

I interpreted it as the following:
- implies disabled
* implies it changed to disabled state
% implies it was newly added
() implies the disabled state was forced

So, my interpretation is that it is a new flag that is force disabled on his profile/arch._________________emerge --quiet redefined | E17 vids: I, II | Now using e from git | e18, e19, and kde4 sucks :-/

Combination of -, % and () is a strong indicator that the flag was removed.

I interpreted it as the following:
- implies disabled
* implies it changed to disabled state
% implies it was newly added
() implies the disabled state was forced

So, my interpretation is that it is a new flag that is force disabled on his profile/arch.

Which is a valid interpretation, but not the only one, as is stated in the quoted part of the manpage. And this particular combination of indicators usually favors the "removed" interpretation (esp. in this case as I doubt the OP is using a non-linux profile).